Very pleased that I will be again running Imaging workflow workshops at Chester Zoo in September 2019. There are 2 two day courses to choose from, the first is 16th-17th September and the second is 21st-22nd September.

Places are limited and we will split the attendees up into 3 groups so that the classes are small and will rotate between tutors.

I will be joining the leading Arctic Photographer Sue Flood who will be running the practical photography workshops and Cindy Miller Hopkins who covers medata and marketing amongst other things, Cindy is a mine of information and is not to be missed.

My class will be a distillation of what I have learned over 28 years of being a professional retoucher and will cover selecting, colour grading, retouching and preparing your images in the fastest possible time with the highest quality possible. My class will include some live retouching so you can see the techniques I use for clients such as the BBC and Disney Nature.

The newest version of Photoshop CC is now available via the Creative Cloud update program. Just a few points to consider before upgrading:

Some useful performance improvements evident in this new release. I have not had time to go through all the changes so don’t have a full report yet, here is a rundown of the main points for working users:

Its been a little while since I updated the website so here are some recent highlights:

Workshops: Its been a busy few months here at Copyrightimage. Im travelling a little more than in the past as my newer photography clients prefer to have their training and systems setup on their own site rather than bringing everything to North Norfolk – which is fair enough of course. To make things easier for these types of clients I do not charge for travel time and charge travel at cost (most often via rail). A few days of training can often be enough to check on colour management, file handling, backing up and software training, if your imaging workflow is less than ideal then a short intensive check and training session could be what you need to gain confidence and re-invigorate your photography, whether you’re a beginner, advanced or professional I can help you get the most from your photography, get in touch for more details.

Natural History Museum: Pleased to have a copy of “Unforgettable underwater photography” drop through the post box. This is the latest book to use the unique collection of Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition images as its source. I was asked by the books editor Rosamund Kidman Cox to work on the image files and produced sharpened CMYK repro ready files.

Underwater images can be the hardest to make the journey to the printed page, the CMYK process does not have much ability to show all the shades of blue that can be shown in RGB on a screen, it took an awful lot of effort and very careful working to get the very best out of these images but I was pleased to see the hard work had paid off and I was able to do the best for the excellent photography this competition attracts.

Other: I have been and will be working on even more books this year for lots of different clients, looks like the consistent high quality “look” that dedicated file preparation can bring book production is starting to make waves, it also does no harm that my accurate soft proofing and colour management means that proofing costs have fallen dramatically for clients…

Although not central to the imaging workflow help I give to clients I have in the past helped some of them develop their websites and online presence.

Up till now I have recommended a few ancillary companies that have had a consistent and reliable service level, they have been:

easily.co.uk for domain name management.

godaddy.com for hosting

Unfortunately both these companies have now become unreliable:

Easily.co.uk have introduced a new control panel that lacks the essential functionality of the old one and telephone support (whilst present) cannot directly help with essentials.

Godaddy are now using their industry dominant position to buy other hosting companies and are hiking charges as a result. Their recent “bait and switch” behaviour leaves a very sour taste.

Fortunately there are companies that can offer much better service and reliability at reasonable cost, here are my current recommendations:

Domain name management: Google domains. Google understand the DNS system like no one else, prices are good and the interface is functional.

Website hosting: Krystal: I have now moved all my web hosting to Krystal, they are more competitive than goDaddy and offer a better standard of product with much more functionality included in the price. Highly recommended.

Clients wishing to transfer to the new services can get in touch with me if they need any help with the process or liaise with their in-house IT support.Share this with others on your social media:

Disney Nature’s new film “Penguins” coming Earth Day 2019 looks like a lot of fun, you can watch the trailer via facebook using this link.

It was lovely working on the preliminary stills for the production, I worked from some very well shot raw files and used my split grading technique to retain all the highlight and shadow detail that is present in nature (but can otherwise get compressed in the photographic and repro process).

Presenting Disney with “file sets” ensures that each image is available in a suitable form for archiving (16bit Master tiff with no sharpening), delivery files (8 bit sharpened), CMYK versions for print and sRGB versions for web and screen use.

These dedicated delivery files ensure that the image is presented as well as it can be on the different media and with a consistency that is the hallmark of a good production.

Always a pleasure to help out Disney Nature with their productions, great people to work with (thanks Matt).

Roz and I last worked together at Tony Stone Images in the Creative Imaging department at about the time it morphed into Getty Images. Roz is a very creative retoucher and producer and was keen to extend her knowledge of colour management and process to help improve the workflow for her clients.

Roz has recently invested in an Eizo CG2730 monitor after going through 2 models and 3 samples of BenQ pro photography monitors that failed to be consistent in colour across the screen (we are very sensitive to colour!). Eizo of course are masters of colour consistency so I’m confident the new purchase will serve her and her clients well.

It’s nice to break up retouching work with helping others, if you feel you or your staff would benefit from some Imaging training then please feel free to get in touch.Share this with others on your social media:

Delighted to have run a successful weekend imaging workflow workshop here in Sheringham recently. It was on a Saturday which suited the private client better. In this kind of 1:1 workshop I can work closely with the photographer and find the areas that will help them grow and get better and faster results in their workflow.

As part of the workshop I need to “map out the territory” we were covering and why. One of the fundamentals of image grading and retouching is to start off with good photography as a source. There is no “clever” software / tool or filter that will turn a mediocre image into a good one. Many try of course and the web and Youtube are littered with multi coloured and deeply artificial images made from dull and poor quality source images. Not good.

Successful photographers such as Clive Nichols (www.clivenichols.com) engage with their subject, they move around it and use the light to bring out an emotion and connection and express this relationship in their images.

Clive recently shot some images in snowy conditions, they could have been static but Clive worked with the conditions and recorded the snow falling and placed the movement as part of the structure in his images. These a fine images, a little out of the ordinary; but in a natural way.

Let’s imagine that a company introduced a filter that allowed you to add falling snow to any image, would that be a good thing? In my opinion no, even the best results it could produce would be artificial, it’s like the difference between a fine meal and a McDonalds.

Make your photography real and meaningful, dont make images that can be consumed instantly and pollute, instead make images that will last and have purpose.

Congratulations to Clive Nichols for winning the award, always nice when clients do well.
Clive is obviously very talented, he loves his subject and he loves light, always a good combination for a photographer!

Clive backs this up with a good imaging workflow that allows him to select, grade and retouch his images to a very high standard in a very short time.
Proud to have helped train and develop Clive’s workflow with him. You can see more of Clive’s images here: www.clivenichols.com